(Image originally from Mashable)

In the Globe and Mail today, columnist Lysiane Gagnon writes:

Then social media arrived, with their good sides and their bad sides, and introduced a new culture, a culture where anyone can publish anything about anybody, with the Internet acting as a giant, unfiltered, viral poster. A person’s reputation – her most precious possession – can be destroyed in a click.

There's right and wrong in her perspective (not least of which on the *fail* side she blames social media for today's "gutter journalism"; that's simply sophistry).

The internet has seen the rebirth of 'doxa' — the manipulation of opinion through rumor — which can result in a dangerous jump to judgment. Reputations — of individuals and companies — can be shredded without proof and without the benefit of the doubt being given. 

But there is a filter and partial antidote to this social web vigilantism and that is the intelligent crowd.

True, the majority of people jump on the snarky train too quickly. But two things will begin (and are beginning) to happen:

1. Smart people are raising cautions in the middle of the nasty firestorms, even around someone with the questionable mental acuity of Toronto mayor Rob Ford
2. People in the social media demos will learn from their mistakes, as with the misleading tweets during the Boston Marathon bombings. They will become more cautious and contemplative about their judgments and less ready to join the social mob.

I don't have an easy time trusting public opinion. It is often so wrong. After all, Ford was elected in the first place.

Nevertheless, I'm seeing more circumspect tweets and Facebook posts whenever others are hastily mocking or attacking someone who could be innocent. And that's a strong signal we are becoming a more sophisticated online democracy.

Now if only activist groups made a similar commitment to a higher standard of research and reflection before denunciation.  

In counterpoint to my post earlier this week on slacktivism, take a look at this campaign by UNICEF covered in The Verge (and brought to my attention by my colleague Mary Warner).

The powerful and motivating campaign is right: Facebook 'likes' don't in themselves do anything. According to Petra Hallebrant, UNICEF Sweden's director of communications

Likes don't save children's lives. We need money to buy vaccines for instance.

It is the responsibility of a social campaign organizer to move 'likes', Twitter support or Instagram images from expression to action. This campaign does it by taking slacktivism on directly, and it works. 

But — to continue the point-counterpoint rhythm — remember as long time social change activist Dr. Larry Brilliant wrote recently in the Stanford Social Innovation Review:

Social change is participatory. That's what makes it social. It has always required intellectual and moral catalysts. But lasting change happens by engaging and affecting large numbers of people. Today, scale comes from connectivity . . . (and) Connectivity drives change.

(Image originally from http://mashable.com/2012/11/02/social-media-negative-politics/)

At least two — there may be more — conclusions of a recent Pew Research Center study on Civic Engagement in the Digital Age are further signs that social networks like Facebook and Twitter are the new demos for political discourse. And, of greater long-term consequence, the evidence suggests being active on social networks leads participants to more and different political activity, both online AND off. 

The study of more than 2,200 American adults "examines online and offline political engagement and pays special attention to the role of social networking sites in political activities." (For reasons I don't fully understand there appears to be far less social network-based political engagement in Canada . . . for the time being.) 

The first of the two study findings I find most persuasive is that in every category of political activity, a significantly higher percentage of social network users than of all adults take political action, including offline actions such as encouraging other people to vote and belonging to a group that is involved in political activity. This begins to put the lie to critics who believe a Facebook 'like' is nothing but a weak and inconsequential expression of alignment with an idea. 

The second finding is that being active on social networks in fact leads to active political behaviours in general. Now, we are not talking here about Arab Spring-level street action. But the Pew study found that "43% of social networking site users say that they have decided to learn more about a political or social issue because of something they read about on a social networking site".

And, take note social defeatists, nearly 20% of site users say they have "decided to take action involving a political or social issue" because of something they have learned about on the social platforms.

If I was a campaign organizer, I would be putting a social strategy at the core of my supporter recruitment program and of my identification and enrollment of social network opinion influencers.

(Cross posted to http://hkstrategies.ca) 

This simple infographic (Aren't they best when simple?) outlines six rules for video SEO optimization . . . 

(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

(Originally posted on the Hill+Knowlton Strategies website)

Last week according to Facebook, approximately 2.7 million people changed their profile image to the gay marriage equality sign above as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge to California’s Propostion 8, which bans the right for same-sex couples to marry, and a challenge to the Defence of Marriage Act. Facebook's analytics team determined that "roughly 3.5 percent of 30-year-old U.S. Facebook" users took part in the visual protest."

As someone who watches commentary on social web activism closely, an interesting aspect of this campiagn was the limited amount of heckling by journalists and public intellectuals who derogate any social web action as slacktivism, something of a lesser order than fighting in the streets (which most have never done and which is anyway beside the point).

A quick Google search results in little in the way of naysaying punditry — although I seem to recall, but can't find, a reference to the fact the Supreme Court is unlikely to support the challenges simply because 2.7 million Americans changed their Facebook image to a pink equal sign. True . . . but again not the point.

Could it be that the old slacktivism axiom has been laid to rest? Maybe we are beginning to recognize that just because social web self-expression is easy to achieve it is no less functional as an advocacy mechanism. In the case of the pink equality sign, it is an expression by millions of support for a progressive and sensitive social sensibility.

The Supreme Court is unlikely to take Facebook support into account in its decsion-making. But it doesn't really matter if in this instance a direct line can't be drawn between Facebook activism and a Supreme Court decision. What matters more is the fact that millions have expressed themselves — with unity of purpose and ideal — to their friends, family, businesses, senators and members of congress on a significant social issue. As Mary Joyce's Meta-Activism Blog points out in the title of a post on the issue: "It's Not Slacktivism if it Changes Culture." 

Or, as Boston comedian Dama Jay Bein put it:

Seeing all of the people who support can inspire people to take MORE action – small change. I’d much rather see red equal signs than pictures of Grumpy Cat and ironic self shots.”

We spend far too much time conceiving fault in people who are active on social networks — finding Freddy Kreuger hiding behind every Facebook post, unearthing social decay in every lustful, violent or sarcastic video, decrying the death of art in 'selfies', seeing self-expression as nothing more than pathological narcissism.

Journalists in particular — but also public intellectuals like Morozov, Gladwell and Keen — take perverse delight it seems in finding any study or number that seemingly demonstrates that social networks are numbing mind sucks, fair ground only for fools, black hat hackers, braggarts, rogue nations, dictators, spy agencies, and identity thieves

Well, here's what I say to that: To quote Walt Whitman:  

“Great is youth, and equally great is old age . . . . great are the day and night; / Great is wealth and great is poverty . . . . great is expression and great is silence.” 

We are social; we want to connect; we see self-expression as about social identity and a way to remove the uncertainty of response. Social networks — and peep culture is about this as well.

I am as appalled as the next person by the idiots who embarrass themselves on reality television, who speak with the kind of braggadocio that belies their basic illiteracy — they are soooo boring. And it is so unfortunate that their flummery passes as entertainment.

But there is another side . . . I am 63 years old and grew up dropping acid to Cream, Iron Butterfly, Blind Faith, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors. I started to lose interest in music after the Bee Gees, hated Abba, Blondie and Boy George, and started to come back to musical life with the Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and Pearl Jam.

It wasn't until I started to see indie bands being talked about and sampled on music blogs and social networks about eight or nine years ago that my passion for music was reborn and retooled. I have come to singers like Ed Sheran, Ben Howard, Daughter, Feist, Lyyke li, Sharon Van Etten, and Sarah Jaffe because people whose judgement I respect — but have never met — pointed me to them. This is also digital life today —the enthusiastic sharing of passions in communities of interest.

So, what am I saying? Self expression and self-searching — and sharing the outcomes — also brings us together. Yeah, we have to put up with a lot of dross and lot of people walking around with crooked elbows from taking pictures of themselves in witless and dazed poses. But I can tolerate that for the chance to meet new partners in music and art and literature, and share and talk about ideas with them.

The most controversial of all the topics we will cover is the threat to privacy from the relentless exposure of 'self' on social networks. Sure we should be afraid of the 'default-to-wide openness' policies of many social platforms. But participation in networked publics does not imply that we have rejected privacy as a value or concept. Nor does it mean that we are surrendering any notion of being privacy just because we have given a little bit of it up. 

"All teens have a sense of privacy, although their definitions of privacy vary widely. Their practices in networked publics are shaped by their interpretation of the social situation, their attitudes towards privacy and publicity, and their ability to navigate the technological and social environment. As such, they develop intricate strategies to achieve privacy goals . . . (privacy) is related more to agency and the ability to control a social situation than particular properties of information.”

I hope any readers of this blog will try to make it to the session if you are at SX. To help visualize what we will be debating, we've put together a short trailer. Our intention with it is to entice you to come . . . or to let you know what you'll be missing.

A warning, though, the trailer contains scenes of violence, brief sexual content and course language . . . really.

Tomorrow I'm moderating a panel at the Canadian Public Relations Society's PR Agency Bootcamp called 'Shaping Your Personal Brand Through Social Media' featuring novelist Terry Fallis, blogger Mark Evans and agency executive Dave Fleet.

I'm posting the questions I'll be asking the panelists in the event anyone has additional questions they would like me to pose to one or all of the panel members. I will commit to summarizing the answers to these additional submitted questions:

1. Do you keep your social presence on a professional level or do you have separate professional and personal social platforms — and why?
2. How conscious has your personal brand building been — plotted out or accidental?
3. Are there differences in how you use various social platforms to build your personal brand — Facebook vs Twitter for example?
4. Is it important to be seen as an early adopter on new platforms — Do I have to be the first to Vine or Shapchat for example?
5. Can you realistically keep your personal and professional social platforms separate?
6. If you don't like your current personal brand on social platforms is it alright to 'reload' — cull your Facebook friends; wipe clean who your follow on Twitter?
7. What do you do if you personally fuck up on social — say by bringing a personal bias into a professional presence? 

Knowing the panelists fairly well, I expect both value and controversy.

Non-profits and activists have been early adopters when it comes to using social technologies to organize themselves for political or social action. Yet, from what I can tell, they have largely bypassed a platform that seems ready built for the organizing mind. I am talking about Google+.

Activist Brian Gerald Murphy in an undated blog post calls it "the best tool yet available at the fingers of activists", although he evidently wrote the post before Google+ created corporate pages since he says "Unlike Facebook, which is rife with businesses, organizations, and applications, Google+ is (for now) comprised entirely of individuals." 

Brian sees the obvious benefits of Google+'s 'Circles' architecture for organizing people into teams and managing different private or public layers of communications to them as well as using Google+ Hangouts for idea exchange or action planning.

A quick Google search unearths a few early articles on uses for nonprofits including this one from the always-worth-reading Beth Kanter and a lengthy post on Hangouts On Air by Daniela Capistrano. And there is Marc Pitman's book, which I haven't read, called Google+ for Nonprofits: A Quick Start Guide to Unleashing the Power of Googel+ to Promote and Fund Your Nonprofit. Most stress the obvious value that a Google+ page gets your content displayed more prominently in Google searches, certainly more than anything you post in Facebook community.

But there's not much on Google+ and political activism. And that's a shame, because I can think of at least three additional reasons Google+ could help political or social activists:

1. Political and activist organizations — and non-profits — often assume ideological commitment and unanimity among people who sign up to help. (The Canadian New Democratic Party does this and loses a lot of support because of it.) Their efforts at keeping volunteers close are lame. Google+ could be used to create safe places to nourish volunteers with special access to leaders, guest speakers (in Hangouts) or organizing communities of volunteers only. 
2. Post on Google+ knowing that all those big-league ideas are visible to all your followers and the public — if you choose. With Facebook, your posts aren't necessarily seen by your followers because that is decided by Facebook's EdgeRank.
3. Use Google+ Communities to start and sustain focused public discussions on issues, programs, problems and strategies at the essence of the organization's mission. . . and because they are on the web, Google search will find them. 

Stop worrying about whether Google+ is going to beat down Facebook: If Google+ works for you — and it can — then use it. 

Some Pinterest users have seen their 'Activity' tab replaced by 'News' the goal of which according to Pinterest,

(I)s to make it easy to find relevant and interesting pins. News will show you the boards where your pins were repinned to, so you'll find other pins you might like.  

The people at Curalate have done a better job than I could at extrapolating what this could mean for Pinterest-based social campaigns:

It’s a great way to go beyond raw Pinterest statistics to discover more about the people who love your pins. This feature can help casual Pinterest users explore the network for kindred spirits. After all, we can predict that someone who repins our stuff will probably like many of the same things. However, we think that professional marketers and brand managers on Pinterest will use the News tab to meet three kinds of people:

Companies and organizations should be able to parse the impact of their Pinterest boards more precisely and target accordingly.